Exploring Urinary Extracellular Vesicles and Immune Mediators as Biomarkers of Kidney Injury in COVID-19 Hospitalized Patients

Abstract

Kidney injury is an important outcome associated with COVID-19 severity. In this regard, alterations in urinary extracellular vesicles (uEVs) could be detected in the early phases of renal injury and may be reflective of the inflammatory process. This is an observational study performed with a case series of COVID-19 hospitalized patients presenting mild-to-critical disease. Total and podocyte-derived uEVs were identified by nanoscale flow cytometry, and urinary immune mediators were assessed by a multiplex assay. We studied 36 patients, where 24 (66.7%) were considered as mild/moderate and 12 (33.3%) as severe/critical. Increased levels of total uEVs were observed (p = 0.0001). Importantly, total uEVs were significantly higher in severe/critical patients who underwent hemodialysis (p = 0.03) and were able to predict this clinical outcome (AUC 0.93, p = 0.02). Severe/critical patients also presented elevated urinary levels (p < 0.05) of IL-1β, IL-4, IL-6, IL-7, IL-16, IL-17A, LIF, CCL-2, CCL-3, CCL-11, CXCL-10, FGFb, M-CSF, and CTAcK. Lastly, we observed that total uEVs were associated with urinary immune mediators. In conclusion, our results show that early alterations in urinary EVs could identify patients at higher risk of developing renal dysfunction in COVID-19. This could also be relevant in different scenarios of systemic and/or infectious disease.